Since the beginning of the NCAA tournament in 1939, no team
had won three straight titles. In fact, no team had reached three straight
championship games. Until Cincinnati.

The Bearcats were on as impressive a roll as any college
team had ever been. Over the last six years, they had won the tough Missouri
Valley Conference six times, finished the regular season ranked either No.1 or
No.2 five times, and reached the Final Four five years running.

Too bad they had to play Cinderella for the title in 1963.

Despite its No.3 ranking and a scoring average of 91.8,
nobody expected Loyola of Chicago to beat Cincinnati, especially when the
Ramblers fell behind by 15 in the second half. But Loyola rallied to send the
game into OT and won the title on a last second rebound and basket by Vic Rouse.

A footnote: SEC champ Mississippi State finally agreed to
play in the integrated NCAA tourney and lost its opening game to Loyola, the
first nationally prominent college team to start four black players.

Final AP Top 10 (Writers' poll taken before major tournaments.
From 196263 through 196768, AP ranked only 10 teams).


Mississippi State ducked out of town at night to travel to the NCAA tournament,
breaking the schools string of earned NCAA trips thwarted by policies against
playing in racially integrated tournaments.

Loyola races into the spotlight - 1963By Joe Gergen
For The Sporting News

Loyola couldn't go anywhere without toting its city along with it. The
designation "of Chicago" was necessary baggage if people were to
differentiate the university from Loyola of the South (in New Orleans) and
Loyola of Los Angeles. Both those smaller Jesuit schools were NCAA Tournament
participants before the Chicago institution gladly accepted its first invitation
in 1963.

Loyola's entrance was the initial step of a journey with historic
implications in both basketball and social justice. The civil-rights movement
was gaining momentum in the United States and the Ramblers, with four black
starters, found themselves in the vanguard.

Loyola had ventured into the South in the 1962 and 1963 seasons, and its
players had been forced to stay in separate hotels in New Orleans and had been
denied service in Houston. The Ramblers' coach, George Ireland, had raised a
ruckus about the inequities, which focused attention not only on segregation,
but also on the basketball program he had built.

There was much about the program to admire.

For the second consecutive season, adhering to Ireland's philosophy that
"the object of the game is to put the ball in the basket," Loyola had
led the nation in scoring. A third-place finish in the 1962 National Invitation
Tournament had provided the impetus for a truly remarkable year in which the
Ramblers lost only two games and 6-foot-2 star Jerry Harkness, a former track
man who didn't play organized basketball until his senior year of high school,
had been chosen a consensus All-American.

But there was so much more involved, including one meeting notable for its
contribution to race relations. A staggering 111-42 rout of Tennessee Tech in
the first round of the NCAA Tournament sent Loyola to the Mideast Regional
semifinals at East Lansing, Mich. The opposition was scheduled to be
Southeastern Conference champion Mississippi State.

In the past, the Bulldogs had bypassed the tournament because they might be
required to play teams with black players. Only the previous year, in fact,
Mississippi State had turned down an invitation after compiling a 24-1 record
and earning a No. 4 national ranking.

But in 1963, coach Babe McCarthy and his players chose to ignore the wishes
of state authorities. They slipped surreptitiously out of Starkville in the
middle of the night before possibly being served with a court order blocking the
trip.

Oh, they would be playing against blacks, all right. By March, Loyola's fame
had spread clear into Mississippi.

"I'm happy my boys could come," McCarthy said upon his arrival at
East Lansing, "just to see a team like Loyola play."

As it developed, Mississippi State didn't travel that distance and risk the
wrath of politicians and citizens just to watch. The methodical Bulldogs slowed
the pace to their liking, took a 7-0 lead and limited explosive Loyola to 26
points in the first half.

The Ramblers nevertheless led by seven points at intermission and pulled out
a 61-51 victory, but this was one contest in which the outcome seemed secondary
to the fact the game was played at all.

When Harkness, the Loyola captain, shook hands with Mississippi State captain
Joe Dan Gold before the game, flashbulbs popped throughout the field house.

"I couldn't imagine what was going on," Harkness said.

To Harkness and his teammates, it was just another game en route to the Final
Four, one the Ramblers were hard-pressed to win. It was only later that Harkness
was struck by the consequence of the moment.

Mississippi State stayed another night and defeated Bowling Green, 65-60, in
the Mideast consolation game for its first NCAA Tournament victory. Following
that game, Loyola dismantled Big Ten Conference co-champion Illinois, 79-64, to
earn a ticket to the Final Four in Louisville.

The season was getting more interesting with every game.

The field at Freedom Hall was made up of the Associated Press' three
top-ranked teams -- in order, Cincinnati, Duke and Loyola -- and one interloper.

Oregon State, which had overwhelmed fourth-ranked Arizona State in the Far
West Regional final, was an item of extreme curiosity. In Mel Counts, the
Beavers featured a 7-foot center with a fine outside shot. Their floor leader,
Terry Baker, had won the Heisman Trophy three months earlier as the country's
outstanding college football player.

Oregon State's opponent in the national semifinals would be Cincinnati, which
had given little cause for the public to believe it would not become the first
school to win three consecutive NCAA basketball titles.

Although Paul Hogue had graduated, the Midwest Regional champion Bearcats had
enjoyed another phenomenal season, losing only to Wichita State (by one point)
in 26 games. They led the nation in defense, yielding 52.9 points per game
during the 1963 season.

In Hogue's absence, coach Ed Jucker had moved George Wilson into the pivot,
shifted 6-2 Tom Thacker from guard to forward (where he had played as a
sophomore two seasons earlier) and inserted unselfish Larry Shingleton into the
backcourt. Tony Yates and Ron Bonham were back at their guard and forward slots.

What the Bearcats lost in rebounding strength, they appeared to gain in
defensive quickness and ballhandling.

So overpowering did Cincinnati appear that on one occasion, a 70-40 thrashing
of a sound Saint Louis team, Jucker apologized to the Billikens' athletic
director.

"I'm sorry we had to be so good," he said.

There wasn't much question that offense would prevail in the Loyola-Duke
semifinal. The East Regional-winning Blue Devils were a tall team that used the
fast break at every opportunity and boasted the wire services' Player of the
Year in senior Art Heyman. However, Heyman shot poorly against Loyola and the
Ramblers ran wild, 94-75.

As impressive as that was, it didn't sway impartial observers, not after
Cincinnati dismissed Oregon State, 80-46.

The title-game matchup of the leading offensive and defensive teams in the
country suggested a classic. Of course, the same kind of pairing had occurred in
1960, when Ohio State rolled to a 20-point victory over California.

Loyola, which had faced all kinds of pressure during a memorable season,
seemed on the brink of a nervous breakdown in the first 20 minutes of the 1963
NCAA championship game. The Ramblers missed 13 of their first 14 shots, fell
behind 19-9 and saw Harkness fail to make a field goal in the first half, which
ended with Cincinnati on top, 29-21. Harkness, the cool New Yorker, was shaken.

"I didn't want to be embarrassed," said Harkness, reflecting on the
fact that family and friends were watching the game that marked Loyola's only
appearance on national television all season. "I was thinking, 'Don't let
them kill us.' "

Cincinnati did go for the kill at the outset of the second half. With Bonham
popping from the corners, the Bearcats boosted their lead to 45-30. There were
12 minutes remaining.

The team with the steely composure suddenly and inexplicably lost its grip on
the game. Cincinnati began making turnovers against the frantic Loyola press.
Wilson picked up his fourth foul and was replaced for a four-minute stretch by
Dale Heidotting, the only reserve on either team to play. The Bearcats began
misfiring from the free-throw line.

And, gradually, the lead dwindled -- to 48-39, 48-43 and, with 2:42 left,
50-48. Yates and Thacker, as well Wilson, had four fouls. The Cincinnati delay
game was malfunctioning.

"Our execution down the stretch wasn't as good it had been," Yates
acknowledged.

Loyola's Les Hunter cut the deficit to one at 53-52, tipping in a Harkness
shot, and Harkness immediately fouled Shingleton to stop the clock with 12
seconds left. Shingleton made the first free throw, his second attempt rolled
off the rim. Hunter rebounded, flipped an outlet pass to Ron Miller and Miller
got the ball into the hands of Harkness.

Much later, when they looked at game films, the Ramblers would need Miller
about running with the ball -- not just walking with it. But everyone in Freedom
Hall -- the officiating team included -- was caught up in the drama of Loyola's
magnificent comeback.

Harkness shot the ball from instinct. Five seconds were left.

"I don't think I felt anything," Harkness said. "When I shot,
I normally had a touch for it. But this time I never felt it. It was almost like
somebody guided it for me."

The shot was true, and Cincinnati didn't react quickly enough to call a
timeout that would have set up a last-second shot. An overtime would be required
to break the 54-54 tie.

Harkness scored first for Loyola in the extra session, and the teams traded
baskets until it was 58-58. The Ramblers, trying to play for one shot, were
forced into a jump-ball situation when guard John Egan, attempting to latch on
to a poor pass, was tied up by Shingleton. Loyola, though, regained possession
when Egan tipped the ball to Miller.

Once more, the Ramblers went to Harkness. He dribbled around looking for an
opening but couldn't shake Bonham. With the clock running down, Harkness went up
for his shot. Bonham brushed the ball.

"I felt I was losing it," Harkness said. "I grabbed it again.
Then I saw Les out of the corner of my eye."

He passed to Hunter, who took the jump shot from the left side of the lane.
The ball bounced over the rim, directly into the hands of Vic Rouse, Loyola's
other big man who was undefended to the right of the basket.

"I didn't tip it," Rouse said. "I grabbed it tight, jumped up
and laid it in. I'd missed a couple like I and I wanted to be so sure. Oh, my,
it felt good."

The basket, coming with one second left, lifted Loyola to an improbable
victory and dethroned a Cincinnati team that felt it couldn't be beaten. The
Ramblers, who averaged nearly 92 points per game season, needed an overtime to
get to 60 but still won. While missing 61-of-84 field-goal attempts, Loyola had
committed only three turnovers compared with 16 for Cincinnati.

"Our game plan worked for us 99 out of 100 times," Cincinnati's
Yates said after Loyola's 60-58 triumph. "On this night, it didn't."